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‘Son’ of ROC legislator from 1948 seeks a home

Kazakh citizen Syrym Nygmet, right, who says he is the son of a member of the nation’s first legislature, shows his late father’s passport during a press conference yesterday in Taipei as he appealed to the government to grant him Taiwanese citizenship and a household registration. PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG

A Kazakh citizen who said he is the son of a member of the Republic of China’s first legislature yesterday appealed to the government to grant him Taiwanese citizenship and give him household registration.

Syrym Nygmet, who arrived in Taiwan last weekend via the newly launched direct cross-strait charter flights, told a press conference that he came here to fulfill his mother’s dying wish of obtaining Republic of China citizenship because his late father, known as Ni Hua-te (倪華德) in Mandarin, was one of the nation’s five legislators elected from Xinjiang Province in 1948 after the Constitution took effect the same year.

Nygmet, now 61, said his family suffered great oppression during China’s Cultural Revolution because of his father’s background as a legislator, adding that his father and mother both died in the early 1990s.

Nygmet and his son came to Taiwan in 2004 and 2005 with the hope of seeking the government’s help to become citizens, but none of the government branches they visited, including the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the Ministry of National Defense, could provide them with substantial assistance, Nygmet said, adding that two MOI secretaries even tried to have them arrested in 2005.

Chinese Nationalist Party Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華), who is helping Nygmet and his son with the matter, said Nygmet was eventually able to obtain an MOI document proving that Ni was really an elected legislator in 1948 and an official Chinese document proving the relation between Nygmet and Ni.

Nygmet also received a document from MOFA after his first trip to Taiwan that said Nygmet could apply for a Taiwanese passport with his birth certificate and other credentials because the MOI had proved that Ni was a Taiwanese citizen, but Nygmet was still denied the application during his second trip to Taiwan, Lee said.

“Since the MOI admitted that my father did not lose his Republic of China [ROC] nationality, this proves that I am also a citizen of the ROC. Since I have come here, I will fight for Taiwanese citizenship. I will try to make it even if I may become homeless [because of running out of money],” Nygmet said.

The law stipulates that children of Taiwanese citizens are entitled to citizenship. Any Taiwanese citizen without a household register can apply after naturalization or if they enter the country on the nation’s passport and stay here legally for seven consecutive years.
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